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Abstract

Data from the NFHS of 1998-1999 indicate that women who had at least a high school level of schooling attained a replacement fertility level (TFR 2.0), which was higher than the fertility of illiterate women by 42%. The considerable fertility decline that has taken place in India, the data also suggest, were due to family planning practice (which increased considerably with female education), rather than increases in the age at marriage, which, conceptually, reduces the period of risk of conception, in combination with other factors like breast feeding and post partum abstinence. Women's education is also associated with increased fecundability, lower foetal loss and a longer reproductive span for women through better nutrition and health-all fertility increasing factors, but the net effect of education was to lower fertility. Overall, contrary to findings from other surveys, fertility declined with every increasing level of women's education.

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Women's education and human fertility in India

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